Python is a widely-used, interpreted, object-oriented, and high-level programming language with dynamic semantics, used for general-purpose programming. It was created by Guido van Rossum, and first released on February 20, 1991.
Why Python? What makes Python so special? How does it happen that programmers, young and old, experienced and novice, want to use it? How did it happen that large companies adopted Python and implemented their flagship products using it?
There are many reasons – we’ve listed some of them already, but let’s enumerate them again in a more practical manner:
it’s easy to learn – the time needed to learn Python is shorter than for many other languages; this means that it’s possible to start the actual programming faster; it’s easy to teach – the teaching workload is smaller than that needed by other languages; this means that the teacher can put more emphasis on general (language-independent) programming techniques, not wasting energy on exotic tricks, strange exceptions and incomprehensible rules; it’s easy to use for writing new software – it’s often possible to write code faster when using Python; it’s easy to understand – it’s also often easier to understand someone else’s code faster if it is written in Python; it’s easy to obtain, install and deploy – Python is free, open and multiplatform; not all languages can boast that.
Python Examples Python is a great choice for:
Web and Internet development (e.g., Django and Pyramid frameworks, Flask and Bottle micro-frameworks) Scientific and numeric computing (e.g., SciPy – a collection of packages for the purposes of mathematics, science, and engineering; Ipython – an interactive shell that features editing and recording of work sessions) Education (it’s a brilliant language for teaching programming!) Desktop GUIs (e.g., wxWidgets, Kivy, Qt) Software Development (build control, management, and testing – Scons, Buildbot, Apache Gump, Roundup, Trac) Business applications (ERP and e-commerce systems – Odoo, Tryton) Games (e.g., Battlefield series, Sid Meier\’s Civilization IV…), websites and services (e.g., Dropbox, UBER, Pinterest, BuzzFeed…) And that’s just the beginning…